Ian Sommerhalder smiles at his adoring fans while making his way through Universal Studios for an interview on Extra on Thursday (July 9) in Universal City, Calif.

The 36-year-old Vampire Diaries star recently opened up about what the show will be like now that Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev) is gone.

“The way it was done was great. The way it was done was actually incredible, because it allows people to know that she’s still there…she’s not dead,” Iansaid. “In seventy years or however long Bonnie lives, Elena will resurface at some point, although we’ll be very old when that happens.”

Ian added, “We’re actually very excited about telling this story. Mystic Falls without Elena Gilbert is going to be very different. We want to go back to that Season 1 and Season 2 of storytelling… I think that the last scene in the last episode that you see is truly a depiction of what this next season’s going to be.”

While in Paris last week, Ian asked his fans outside his hotel to give him one day of privacy and not ask him to take photos. When a video surfaced, he faced some criticism for not being accommodating with the fans and now he’s released an apology.

“Looking at the world through my eyes and always trying to see it through yours. I see you. I see all of you and find great beauty in each set of eyes. Anyone who knows me understands that I spend a great deal of my life with our fans. Our audience. The people that make this show and ISF happen- all with hearts, minds bodies and souls. It blows my mind that a man who tried to love so much, a man asking for one day, just one day to have a quiet walk down the street is so upsetting to people,” Ian said on Instagram. “So much love to you all… Goodnight and thank you.”

30+ pictures inside of Ian Somerhalder and the others at the event… More Here! »

A big question on everyone’s minds has been whether Elena survived Kai’s (Chris Wood) attack last week, and we finally got our answer.

Kai actually linked Elena’s life to Bonnie’s (Kat Graham), so she will live in a casket until Bonnie dies! And Damon (Ian Somerhalder) had the chance to let his BFF Bonnie die, but he chose not to, knowing that he could live happily ever after with Elena in about 60 or 70 years.

We got a goodbye scene between Elena and every character – including a returning Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen) – and it was nothing short of heartbreaking.

The Vampire Diaries season finale is tonight and the big question everyone wants to know is…Will they kill off Elena (Nina Dobrev)!?

“Well…” executive producer Julie Plec started to tell E! News. “I don’t know how to answer that without either hinting a yes or hinting a no. I’ll just say that we’re very happy with the choice we made about how to handle her character’s departure. We’ll see if everyone agrees. We always knew how [Elena] was going to go, but we just didn’t know at what point. We were still talking about whether we’d be able to move that into season seven or not. We definitely knew the ending.”

Cast member Michael Trevino also weighed in on the issue. “It’s an end note for sure,” he said of Nina’s departure. “It’s a big period at the end of the sentence, if you will. It’s beautiful. As we know, Nina Dobrev is leaving our show so we put a stamp of an ending there for our beloved Elena.”

“They did a beautiful job with her send off,” Michael added. “I wouldn’t necessarily call it a cliffhanger, but it definitely is a, ‘where do we go from here?’ You’re going to be asking yourself, what is season seven going to be about? It’s mysterious in a way.”